


To Dream Again

by tour_treasure



Category: Olympic Opening Ceremony (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tour_treasure/pseuds/tour_treasure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some things that are beyond our comprehension, that have to be seen to be believed.  Life opens up some unexpected doors.  Some things are personal whilst others connect us through the ages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Dream Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nebula99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebula99/gifts).



> Quotation from The Tempest by William Shakespeare as read by Kenneth Branagh during the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games

“Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,  
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.  
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments  
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,  
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,  
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,  
The clouds methought would open, and show riches  
Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked,  
I cried to dream again.”  
(William Shakespeare, The Tempest)

 

When I was a young boy I dreamed of many things for my life, as we all do. Some of those were the mundane everyday things and some not so much. Even in those early days when everything was so new and exciting, when the fantastical seemed probable, never did I ever anticipate I would be part of a revolution that changed the world.

Then again does anyone who changes the world ever really set out to do that? Does the boy across the road or the girl three streets over ever wake up one morning and proclaim that they have an idea that’s going to change life as we know it? Seriously, that is.

I loved to design things so that’s what I did; bridges, tunnels, ships graced my pages for as long as I could remember. They presented puzzles to solve that only my continued attention would make perfect. Once on the page they consumed my time until production was finished and they developed a life of their own that I could barely conceive.

Some ideas were unsuccessful as is the way with all these things, yet they paved the way for other people with other ideas. They were the seeds that someone else grew to fruition so they were something substantial.

Naturally there were some successes, ones that would stand the test of time and survive long after I was gone from this earth. They made sure I was in high demand and kept working. No matter whom they were built for or what came after them there is a part of my designs that will always belong to me. The part, the spark that turned into smudges on paper when I breathed life into them.

Maybe that’s how P. L. Travers felt when she breathed life into Mary Poppins. Whoever heard of a nanny who arrived by umbrella? Then again there were probably children who wished that a woman such as she would swoop in and make their lives bearable. Who would refuse a nanny who came to help those in need?

Walt Disney was a man who saw Mary’s potential and would do what he could to change the life of a nanny forever. Maybe there will be those who believed a mere nanny to be unworthy of such attention, and if so then they would be bitterly disappointed. Decades later when the indelible image of a woman flying in on her umbrella with a carpet bag had become part of the landscape, Mary would face another test.

Maybe someone should warn her that she’ll be flying into the Olympic Stadium with a well-lit umbrella (the easy part) and then fighting off a 60ft Voldemort? Though I suppose it could be argued that protecting children from danger has been her mission all along.

Unlike one of her other fictional compatriots, as far as I’m aware, she doesn’t take great delight in blowing up all and sundry at every opportunity. Jumping into chalk pictures and engaging in a horse race with carousel horses, maybe, but that sort of destruction? Not in the nature of the sweet film-version Mary.

Maybe she should not go wandering off else she might acquire some bad habits that would be hard to break.

Yes, undoubtedly someone will need to keep an eye on that Mr Bond. Though who would’ve thought that he’d become a film franchise that others would repeatedly try, and fail, to replicate? I’m not sure he’s all that impressive, even if he is licensed to kill. I must admit that I do wince when I see him destroy something. Sympathy to my fellow designers and all that.

Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, I do have rather a soft spot for, along with her Corgis. Even Bond felt uncomfortable in the presence of this great monarch. At least in that regard I do feel some kinship. I feel somewhat in awe of that great woman who, upon that day in July in the year 2012, will stand where her father and her great-grandfather stood before her. On that day she will stand and Open the Olympic Games which appears to be somewhat of a family legacy.

In July she and several thousand of her subjects will watch their history before them and be in awe of the spectacle. In some small corner of their minds they will spend a brief moment wondering what their legacy might be before that moment is lost with what follows. For that brief moment every person is united in the realm of possibility. A realm where title is irrelevant, an odd concept for a society within which it is deeply ingrained.

The monarch may have changed but love for Queen (or King) and country is something that unites us all. We live in one land under the unforgiving sun and though the skyline has changed over the centuries, the land we call home has always been a beacon of light.

As we turn back to important matters (me, for those who haven’t yet grasped it) I am reminded once more of the options when I was a boy. A time when I wanted to slay dragons and enjoy the simplicity that in later life would elude me. There was a time when I could have been anything, anyone, and all my friends felt the same. Even if only for a moment as they tried to escape the reality that there were already plans for their lives.

Back in those days I never in my wildest dreams ever anticipated that over a century later a representation of me would stand in the Olympic Stadium for the XXX Olympiad and survey chimneys rising from the ground. Of course I was vaguely familiar with the whisperings of the Olympics when I was working, though it was never the spectacle it has since become.

The familiar smell in the air, the one I grew up with, stirred up familiar feelings in the pit of my stomach and then I saw what I’d been nearly close enough to touch. The Olympic ring. The others move toward it as though on a collision course they’d always meant to be on. Then came the sparks as they rained down on the world and sent a shiver down my spine. These rings, this moment, this time we stand in the presence of the momentous, we are all united as one.

In that moment I realise that history is there close enough to touch. Out there, in the audience, somewhere on the globe, there’s someone that sees the world as many of the greats have seen it. There’s somebody who’s going to dream again. Someone in this moment I am connected to.


End file.
